IMAGINE AFRICATOWN CENTRAL DISTRICT DESIGN WEEKEND

JULY 13TH

5:00PM -- Design Town Hall, Garfield High School

JULY 14TH

9:00AM -- DESIGN CIPHER, GARFIELD HIGH SCHOOL

5:00PM -- COMMUNITY DINNER RE'UNION ON UNION, 23RD & UNION

The Africatown Central District Preservation and Development Association announces the launch of the inaugural Imagine Africatown Design Weekend, to be held at Garfield High School. Imagine Africatown is a two-day design weekend taking place in the Central District of Seattle, WA on July 13-14th, 2018. Learn more about Africatown and our events below. This is a temporary website for the design weekend and serves as a resource for the activities and events taking place. Please continue to check-in between now and day of the event for updates, new material, and resources to learn more.

Join Africatown Central District Preservation and Development Association and Design in Public for an inspiring non-traditional keynote presentation with the distinguished artist, designer, and educator Walter Hood. African Architecture historian and CEO of design consultancy Southern Sahara Nmadili Okwumabua, will join us as our second speaker. Please join us as we welcome these two distinguished guests to the Central District of Seattle and ask them to help us envision a future that includes afrocentric design in our built environment. Make your voice heard on the open mic about the future of the Central District!

About Walter Hood

Walter Hood is the Creative Director and Founder of Hood Design Studio in Oakland, California. Hood Design Studio is his tripartite practice, working across art + fabrication, design + landscape, and research + urbanism. He is also a professor of landscape architecture at the University of California, Berkeley and lectures on professional and theoretical projects nationally and internationally. Walter designs and creates urban spaces and objects that are public sculpture. Believing everyone needs beauty in their life, he makes use of everyday objects to create new apertures through which to see the surrounding emergent beauty, strangeness, and idiosyncrasies of urban space.

Nmadili Okwumabua is the Founder of the Community Planning & Design Initiative Africa and a professor of African Architecture & Urban Design at Kennesaw State University in Atlanta, Georgia. She is an African architecture historian and CEO of Southern Sahara, a design consultancy specializing in the research and development of modern African architecture. As an urban planner Nmadili is committed to the development of quality, affordable housing in Africa and as an academic she works to document and educate on contemporary practices in African urban design.

Her vision for Africa's modern built environment is embedded in the philosophy and development of technologically advanced architecture that reflects the lifestyle and aesthetic values of the 21st century African. Through annual design-build competitions, CPDI Africa is poised to create the platform which talented designers can create a plethora of African inspired architecture, gain recognition and rewards for their pioneering efforts, and finally be gainfully employed in developing neighborhoods and communities in Africa and the diaspora that are culturally and environmentally sustainable.

Gather with us on 23rd & Union July 14th to celebrate black culture and African Heritage on our Midtown Activation Public Art Project led by Sara Zewde.

The Midtown Activation Project is a celebration of Midtown's cultural significance to Seattle's black population. Midtown has stood as a beacon and a meeting point that nurtured and developed much of Seattle’s urban culture, music, art, and spoken word among other talents. Midtown was a place steeped in history and identity and rich in tradition.

This is an interactive art project that is happening NOW and we're looking for volunteers!

The Cipher will bring together designers, planners, developers, and community members of all ages for a landmark one-day workshop where we will dream, imagine, and project the future of Africatown. At the end of the Cipher, teams will present their proposals to a broad audience--including City officials and civic leaders--generate feedback and further the conversation. The goal is rich dialogue and implementable design options for four key sites that will form the backbone for a thriving Africatown.